Golden Child
by JuliaBeth
Summary: What if Rumpelstiltskin had gotten a child in Fairytale Land? Why did he even want one? What if he still had her when Regina exacted her curse? What kind of parent would he be in a world without magic? Would he learn from his mistakes with Baelfire, or will this one run away too? Mentions of Rumpbelle. Ratings may go up. Chapter 3 is up!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Once Upon a Time and all the characters you recognized are property of ABC.

I've been rewatching the series on Netflix and came up with this idea. The original story of Rumpelstiltskin had him taking children as payment for his deals. I know we saw a bit of that with the Cinderella story, but I thought that probably wasn't his first or last deal like that and what if he still had one of those children when the curse was done. What kind of parent would he be in our world without his Dark One powers? Hope you all enjoy it. Please read and review. Rating may go up in future chapters.

* * *

Lottie Gold smiled at the young man selling flowers as she walked by the stand on the way to her father's shop. She knew Garrick Bayard was too old for her. He was already twenty-two and she was just sixteen and still in high school. But he was really cute and sweet to her as she passed the Mr. French's flower cart on her way to and from school every day. He always smiled so brightly and called out a greeting as she passed. The past few weeks, he's been stopping her to talk for a few minutes at a time. She knew her dad would have fit if he found out, since Garrick was so much older, but she really looked forward to their talks. Besides, what harm was flirting?

The guys at school barely even noticed her. She was too short, wore glasses, and had a mouth full of metal. Her brown hair was curly and frizzy in the dreary Maine weather. Besides, most of their parents owed her dad money and they tended to avoid her, along with most of the girls like they thought she was going to force them to pay it up or something.

Garrick grinned as he saw Lottie headed towards him. He looked around. Moe was over at Granny's getting them some coffee, so he hopped down from his seat and grabbed a daisy out of a bin. Moe had been giving him grief about flirting with her, given her age and who she was too. Hell, it wasn't his fault Moe owed the old man money. Who didn't at one time or another?

"Good afternoon, Miss Lottie," he smiled and held out the daisy. "A pretty flower for a pretty lady."

Lottie blushed as she reached for the flower. "Thank you, Garrick."

"It'll cost you," he grinned, pulling the flower back.

Lottie looked at him a little surprised.

"Just your phone number," he finished, smoothly.

"Oh," she smiled, shyly. "Um..," She was sure her dad wouldn't like that. Talking to him on the way home from school was one thing, but talking on the phone? That was something too real, wasn't it?

"Come on, a beautiful flower for just a phone number," he pressed. "That's a very good deal. Besides, these are magic daisies."

"They are?" She replied, skeptically.

"Sure are," he answered. "If you put it in water with just a drop of food coloring, it'll turn that color. Say if you put blue dye in the water, tomorrow morning, it'll be as blue as your eyes."

"Okay," she gave in. She pulled a pen out of her bag and quickly wrote her number on a card and handed it to him.

"And here is your magic daisy," Garrick smiled.

"Thank you. I really have to run now," she said. "Dad will be looking for me."

"Goodbye, Lottie."

"Goodbye, Garrick." Lottie hurried along to the pawn shop. She walked into the shop and set her books on the counter.

"Hello, Papa," she said. "Do we have a vase?"

"Hello, Lottie Dear, why do you require a vase?" Mr. Gold said, looking up from a ledger he was studying.

"I bought a daisy," she said.

"Don't buy flowers from that scoundrel," he grumbled, looking at the daisy with disgust. "I'm sure you can find one around here somewhere."

Lottie rolled her eyes and found a vase. She didn't know why her father had so much hatred for Mr. French, but then, she tried to make it a point to stay out of his business. She trimmed the flower and set it on the counter, reminding herself to add some food coloring when they got home. She grabbed her books and started on her homework. Normally, she worked at Granny's diner in the afternoons but she had this afternoon off to catch up on her schoolwork. Her dad wanted her to learn financial responsibility it seemed, just not at his shop where the clientele could be 'dodgy' as he put it. Most kids her age would be allowed to go home after school, but not her. She was to either be here at the shop or at Granny's. Her dad kept up with her whereabouts at all times. She didn't really understand why he was so overprotective. This was Storybrooke after all, nothing ever happened here.

Gold eyed his daughter over the book he was holding. Something was different about her lately. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what, but there was definitely something going on. She had always been a good student but hated going to school, putting it off for as long as possible in the mornings. Now, she rushed out in the mornings as if something were on fire and she was getting home later and later in the afternoons. He wished for the millionth time that her mother were there with them or that her mother was even alive at all, but there were just somethings even magic couldn't do. And they were now stuck in a world where magic didn't exist.

Of course, she didn't know her mother dead. She like everyone else in this retched town didn't really know anything of her past. She believed the story he had told her years ago. A story of how her mother had left when she was an infant to pursue dreams of being an actress in Hollywood and had never returned. That was what most of the town believed as well, though, if pressed, none of them could really remember her mother. Not what she looked like or even her name. Of course they couldn't. You couldn't remember someone that never existed. At least not in this world.

* * *

Chapter 2 will tell how he came to get her in Fairytale Land.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Once Upon a Time and all the characters you recognized are property of ABC.

I've been rewatching the series on Netflix and came up with this idea. The original story of Rumpelstiltskin had him taking children as payment for his deals. I know we saw a bit of that with the Cinderella story, but I thought that probably wasn't his first or last deal like that and what if he still had one of those children when the curse was done. What kind of parent would he be in our world without his Dark One powers? Hope you all enjoy it. Please read and review. Rating may go up in future chapters.

* * *

It was two weeks after he had sent Belle away that his latest contract became due. In that time he had shut himself up in Dark Castle and refused to answer any calls for his services. He thought about just ignoring this one as well, but he couldn't.

Six months before a young peasant girl had called out for him, wanting to get rid of an unwanted child. Seems she had been having an indiscretion with a local married nobleman and had gotten with child only to find that he no longer wanted her with a brat in tow. Even if it was his brat. So, desperate, she'd called out for Rumpelstiltskin to help her get rid of the child.

What she'd actually wanted was to get rid of the pregnancy, but he had made her another deal instead. If she carried the child to term, then he would take the child to a good home. He would also make it so that her lover didn't remember any of this and reward her handsomely besides. He had never exacted so low a price before. A child that she wanted to be rid of anyway, but it was an answer for him as well. Besides, as hard as he tried, he couldn't help but feel a little pity for the poor girl. She was already cursed to only be able to feed her crippled mother and younger siblings by warming the bed of such a callous man and their world was cruel to those without power or money. Which was exactly why he had to keep this contract. If the girl had been desperate enough to make the deal, what might she do if he didn't keep his end of it?

He left for the small village, wondering what he should do with child. When he'd made the deal, he'd plan to give the child to Belle. She'd confided in him that while she didn't miss Gaston or the other men her father and the council had suggested she marry, she did miss the possibility of having children and a family. And that, unlike love, he could give her, due to a young woman with a baby she didn't want. Of course he would have had to tell her the truth about where he got it, probably with some proof from the mother that the child was truly unwanted.

After all, monsters didn't like children. They ate them in soup. Where had that particular story come from anyway? He didn't eat children. He may be a monster, but he wasn't a cannibal. He did take them from ungrateful men and women , who sought to trade them for something they thought they needed, but he always found them a good home. Sometimes to other women who had come to him to ask for a child, sometimes calling in favors for other debts, and sometimes, just leaving them on the doorsteps of families he thought worthy.

That night, he conjured up some goat's milk and fed the child, then cleaned her up and put her in the cradle that had been Bae's. In the morning he would have to find some farm girl to come look after her until he could find her a proper family. He thought about all the people who owed him a favor and none of them seemed good enough. After all, if they were good enough for Belle's child and that's how he truly thought of her, then they wouldn't be having dealings with him in the first place. Perhaps Charming and Snow White, if they could get their act together, but at the moment, Snow was running around the countryside pretending to be a bandit and Charming was pretending to be a Prince and not a shepherd. He thought briefly of Charming's own mother, but she was too old for a newborn. It would take some doing, finding the perfect family for the child because only perfect would do for Belle's daughter.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Once Upon a Time and all the characters you recognized are property of ABC.

I've been rewatching the series on Netflix and came up with this idea. The original story of Rumpelstiltskin had him taking children as payment for his deals. I know we saw a bit of that with the Cinderella story, but I thought that probably wasn't his first or last deal like that and what if he still had one of those children when the curse was done. What kind of parent would he be in our world without his Dark One powers? Hope you all enjoy it. Please read and review. Rating may go up in future chapters.

* * *

Garrick raised up on his elbow and watched as his companion for the night got dressed. He smiled. Mandy was always good fun. "Can't you stay the night?" he asked.

"No can do," the brunette replied. "Gotta work the late shift, what with Ashley having the baby and all."

"Yeah, yeah," he teased. "Granny is a real slave driver after all. Tomorrow night then?"

"If you don't have another date," she teased back. "I saw you with Lottie Gold this afternoon."

He shrugged. "That's nothing. She's just a friend."

"Yeah, well, you'd just better watch out," Mandy warned. "Her Dad is ten kinds of crazy and he owns this town. I wouldn't want to piss him off."

"I'm not scared of Gold."

"Right," she grinned. "See you tomorrow." She blew a kiss as she left.

Garrick grabbed his phone off his nightstand and searched for the number he'd put in that afternoon. Finding it, he smiled. Should he call or should he just text?

* * *

It had been six months since Rumplestiltskin had taken in the child. And they had been through just as many caregivers. He knew he should have already found the girl a home, but he just couldn't bring himself to give her up. He also knew that he was always going to have trouble keeping someone to care for her. No young woman wanted to stay at Dark Castle for more than a few weeks, even if he did allow them time to go home, and the ones that did were incompetent. The first had tried feeding the child cow's milk after he'd told her that only goat's milk would stay on her delicate stomach. The second had insisted on letting her cry and cry, saying that she would be spoiled if she was picked up and cuddled at every little complaint. As if you could hold a child too much. The third had ran off and gotten married. The fourth almost let her get into the fireplace and the fifth had been more interested in getting in to his bed than getting the child to sleep in hers.

Now, he was again, hunting another nanny when what he should have been hunting was her a home. So far, no one had been good enough. Not for this child. Not for Belle's daughter. He'd all but given up on finding either when she showed up at his door.

Old and stooped, but with same fire in her eyes and proud lift to her chin. Eurythia's mother. Bae's grandmother and he supposed still his mother-in-law, although neither of them had seen Eurythia since Bae was a tiny babe. At first, he wasn't sure what to do. Their last meeting after Baelfire had disappeared had not gone well. Then she smiled.

"Well, Rumple,are you going to let me in, or do I have to catch my death out here on the steps?" she asked.

He quickly stepped aside, to allow her in. "Come in."

She stepped in, doffing her cloak. "Well, now, I suppose you'd like to know why I'm here. The fact is I think we can help each other."

"And how is that?" he asked, suspiciously.

"I know about that child you've taken in and that you can't get any decent help with her and since I'm now a widow, I need a job. I've lost my sons, my daughter, and my husband and I don't intend to live with one of my daughter-in-laws like some poor relation. Nor do I intend on begging in the streets. I need a job and you need a nanny. I can earn my own way here."

Rumplestiltskin opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off again.

"I know what you are and I know what you do. I'm not scared you'll harm me and I have no worries about my virtue either. The deal I came to offer you is simple. Room and board and meager salary in exchange for caring for the child and doing some housework around the castle. I'll not get into your business and you'll stay out mine. Is it a deal?"

Rumplestiltskin smiled. Usually it was he who set the terms of the deal. "Well, I'm not sure how long the child will be in my care."

"We both know that if you wanted to get rid of that child, you would have done so by now," She remarked.

"Maybe I'm just fattening her up to eat her."

"I hardly doubt you became the Dark One to save your child from be eaten by ogres only to start eating children yourself. You know I am more than qualified. You trusted me to watch over dear Baelfire. Now, do I have the job or not?" The old woman said. "I do not intend to beg for it and if your answer is no, its a long walk back home and I'd like to get started."

He looked at her for a long moment, then decided. "You have a deal, Mrs. Potts. She's in the nursery. Top of that staircase, first door to the right. She'll be wanting her lunch soon."

"What's her name?"

"She doesn't have one."

"You haven't named her?" Mrs. Potts asked, incredulously.

"Once you start naming them it gets harder to eat them," he quipped, returning to his spinning wheel. "You can name her if you'd like."

* * *

A/N: Any ideas on who Garrick should be in fairytale land?


End file.
